MASTER CRAFT

How Blizzard changed the world, then spent 20 years changing its World

- JENNIFER ALLEN

Back in 2014, World Of Warcraft lead game designer Ion Hazzikostas said that “without a question” the game would be around to celebrate its 20th anniversary. Now, in 2024, his prediction has been proved correct. Not only that but, having been appointed game director in the meantime, he’s renewing his optimistic prediction. “I’m confident the game will still be around ten years from now,” he tells us. It’s a bold statement in an industry where even the flavour of the month can struggle to maintain its appeal for a full 31 days.

Truly quantifying World Of Warcraft’s growth over these two decades is difficult given that Blizzard doesn’t make player numbers publicly available. But while the game has gone through peaks and troughs – affected by everything from the increase in people playing games online in general to the expansion release schedule and even the COVID pandemic – it’s safe to say that it has remained very popular indeed, even if today’s numbers don’t match the levels of its original peak.

At his GDC talk this year, Warcraft franchise SVP and GM John Hight was coy about specific numbers, but according to MMORPG specialist Bellular Gaming’s analysis of the accompanying graph, about 7.25 million people still play WOW actively. That’s compared to a peak popularity of 12 million shortly after the 2010 launch of its second expansion pack, Wrath Of The Lich King, in China. Since then, the number has steadily ebbed and flowed with dips going as ‘low’ as the 5.5 million mark, with an estimated 500,000 players logging in each day. In terms of account numbers, World Of Warcraft greatly outranks other MMORPGs such as Final Fantasy XIV, with a mainstream cultural reach comparable to the likes of Fortnite and Minecraft.